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Whether and how remitted clinical depression in postpartum motherhood contributes to poor infant adaptive functioning is inconclusive. The present longitudinal study examines adaptive functioning in infants of mothers diagnosed as clinically depressed at 5 months but remitted at 15 and 24 months. Fifty-five U. S. mothers with early, remitted clinical depression and 132 mothers without postpartum depression completed the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales about their infants at 15 and 24 months. Between groups, mothers were equivalent in age, ethnicity, marital status, and receptive vocabulary (a proxy for verbal intelligence), and infants were equivalent in age and distribution of gender. Controlling for maternal education and parity, mothers with early, remitted clinical depression and mothers with no postpartum depression rated their infants similarly on communication, daily living skills, and socialization. Mothers with early, remitted clinical depression rated their infants poorer in motor skills. Girls were rated more advanced than boys in communication at 24 months and daily living skills at 15 and 24 months. Rated infant adaptive behavior skills increased from 15 to 24 months. With exceptions, adaptive functioning in infants may be robust to early, remitted maternal depression, and adaptive functioning presents a domain to promote positive development in this otherwise vulnerable population., (Published 2024. This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. Infant Mental Health Journal published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Despite a large animal literature documenting the role of low maternal nurturance and elevated glucocorticoid production on offspring limbic development, these pathways have not yet been assessed during human infancy. Informed by animal models, the present study examined whether 1) maternal disrupted interaction is related to infant cortisol levels, 2) infant cortisol levels are associated with infant limbic volumes, and 3) infant cortisol levels mediate associations between maternal disrupted interaction and infant limbic volumes. Participants included 57 mother-infant dyads. Infant saliva was measured at one time point before and two time points after the Still-Face Paradigm (SFP) at age 4 months. Five aspects of maternal disrupted interaction were coded during the SFP reunion episode. Between 4 and 25 months (M age = 11.74 months, SD = 6.12), under natural sleep, infants completed an MRI. Amygdala and hippocampal volumes were calculated via automated segmentation. Results indicated that 1) maternal disrupted interaction, and specifically disoriented interaction, with the infant was associated with higher infant salivary cortisol (AUCg) levels during the SFP, 2) higher infant AUCg was related to enlarged bilateral amygdala and hippocampal volumes, and 3) infant AUCg mediated the relation between maternal disrupted interaction and infant amygdala and hippocampal volumes. Findings are consistent with controlled animal studies and provide evidence of a link between increased cortisol levels and enlarged limbic volumes in human infants. Results further suggest that established interventions to decrease maternal disrupted interaction could impact both infant cortisol levels and infant limbic volumes., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no competing financial or other interests that could appear to influence the current work., (Copyright © 2023. Published by Elsevier Ltd.)

Examining typical developmental trajectories of infant eating behaviors, correlates of those trajectories, and cross-lagged associations between eating behaviors and anthropometry, is important to understand the etiology of these behaviors and their relevance to growth early in the lifespan. Mothers (N = 276) completed the Baby Eating Behavior Questionnaire (BEBQ) and infant anthropometrics were measured at ages 1, 2, 4, 6, and 10 months. Infant and maternal characteristics were collected by maternal report. Trajectories of eating behaviors were identified using latent class growth modeling and bivariate analyses examined associations of infant eating behavior trajectory membership with infant and maternal characteristics. Cross-lagged analyses examined associations between BEBQ subscales and infant weight-for-length z-score. Infant eating behavior trajectories included: Consistently High (62%) and Consistently Moderate (38%) Enjoyment of Food; Consistently High (9%), Moderate & Decreasing (43%), and Low & Decreasing (48%) Food Responsiveness; and Consistently High (62%) and Moderate & Decreasing (38%) General Appetite. Trajectory group membership was not associated with infant sex, gestational age, birthweight, or having been exclusively fed breastmilk at 2 months. Consistently High trajectories for Enjoyment of Food, Food Responsiveness, and General Appetite were associated with maternal demographic markers of psychosocial risk (e.g., lower maternal age and educational attainment). Food Responsiveness and General Appetite tracked strongly across infancy within individuals. Cross-lagged associations of Enjoyment of Food, Food Responsiveness, and General Appetite with weight-for-length z-score across infancy were generally null. Much additional work is needed to understand eating behaviors in infancy, their development, and their etiology. Further understanding of infant eating behaviors will provide the basis for future interventions to improve life course nutrition, growth, and health., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors have no financial relationships or conflicts of interest to disclose., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Parenting skills, such as Autonomy Support (AS), have been proposed as a potential mechanism explaining the intergenerational contiguity of Executive Function (EF). However, few studies have focused on mothers and fathers among non-Western families. The current study investigated the role of maternal and paternal AS in the relation between parental EF and infant EF at 14 months of age among 123 Dutch and 63 Chinese first-time mothers and fathers and their infants. Multiple-group structural equation models were built for mothers and fathers separately with country as a grouping variable. Results showed that parental AS did not mediate the relation between parent EF and infant EF at 14 months. Mean-level differences were found in parental AS, maternal EF, and infant inhibition across countries, while no country differences were found in the relation between parent EF, AS and infant EF. Our findings suggested that individual differences in early EF may not be stable enough to be reliably predicted from parental factors across the Netherlands and China., Competing Interests: Declarations of interest None., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

How mothers respond to infants' distress has implications for infants' development of self-regulation and social competence. In a sample of 35 mothers and their 4- to 8-month-old infants, we induced infant distress using an arm restraint task and compared infants' observed affect and physiological responses under two conditions, when mothers were instructed to respond with: 1) positive affect and 2) negative affect. Based on theoretical and empirical support, we empirically evaluated two opposing hypotheses. Based on the Mutual Regulation Model and work on affect matching, we predicted that when mothers respond with negative affect versus positive affect, distressed infants' duration of negative affect would be smaller, negative affect would be less intense, and respiratory sinus arrythmia (RSA) withdrawal would be lower. Based on social referencing theory and research, we expected that when mothers respond with positive affect versus negative affect, distressed infants' duration of negative affect would be smaller, negative affect would be less intense, and RSA withdrawal would be lower. We found that when mothers responded to their distressed infants with negative affect versus positive affect, infants spent significantly more time in negative affect, their intensity of expressed negative affect was greater, and their RSA withdrawal was greater, suggesting that mothers' display of mild positive affect when infants are distressed may be helpful for infants. The current findings add to accumulating evidence that mothers' positive relative to negative affective response to their infants' distress can produce observable differences in infants' duration and intensity of negative affect, as well as their physiology. Findings have the potential to inform future research that investigates how mothers can most effectively reduce their infants' distress and intervention that targets the moment-to-moment behaviors in mother-infant reciprocal interactions., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors report no declarations of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Attention mechanisms have a pertinent role in shaping developmental pathways to anxiety and depressive disorders. The current study examined the direct and interactive associations between maternal anxiety symptoms, children's focused attention, and children's anxiety and depression behaviors in early toddlerhood. Participants were 150 mother-child dyads (50 % female) that were assessed at two time points. At 12 months of child age, mothers reported about their anxiety symptoms and children's focused attention. Children's focused attention was also observed and rated from an individual play task. At 18 months of age, mothers reported about children's anxiety and depression behaviors. Focused attention predicted child anxiety and depressive behaviors, with different patterns of associations between observed and reported measures of attention. There was also a significant interaction between maternal anxiety symptoms and observed children's focused attention. A positive association between maternal anxiety symptoms and child anxiety and depression symptoms was evident only for children with above-average levels of observed focused attention during play. Results suggest that different aspects of focused attention play a role in maternal reported anxiety and depression behaviors in early development and may modulate the intergenerational transmission of anxiety., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Affective exchanges between mothers and infants are key to the intergenerational transmission of depression and anxiety, possibly via adaptations in neural systems that support infants' attention to facial affect. The current study examined associations between postnatal maternal symptoms of depression, panic and social anxiety, maternal parenting behaviours, and infants' neural responses to emotional facial expressions portrayed by their mother and by female strangers. The Negative Central (Nc), an event-related potential component that indexes attention to salient stimuli and is sensitive to emotional expression, was recorded from 30 infants. Maternal sensitivity, intrusiveness, and warmth, as well as infant's positive engagement with their mothers, were coded from unstructured interactions. Mothers reporting higher levels of postnatal depression symptoms were rated by coders as less sensitive and warm, and their infants exhibited decreased positive engagement with the mothers. In contrast, postnatal maternal symptoms of panic and social anxiety were not significantly associated with experimenter-rated parenting behaviours. Additionally, infants of mothers reporting greater postnatal depression symptoms showed a smaller Nc to their own mother's facial expressions, whereas infants of mothers endorsing greater postnatal symptoms of panic demonstrated a larger Nc to fearful facial expressions posed by both their mother and female strangers. Together, these results suggest that maternal symptoms of depression and anxiety during the postpartum period have distinct effects on infants' neural responses to parent and stranger displays of emotion., (© 2022. The Psychonomic Society, Inc.)

From birth, mothers and infants co-regulate their interactions that are shaped by their socio-emotional development, relationship history, current circumstances, and goals. However, few studies have longitudinally explored co-regulation in the context of medical and psycho-social risk. The present 4-wave longitudinal study sought to shed light on factors associated with co-regulation over time in infants from 6- to 48-months. The objectives were to 1) identify differences in co-regulation among low- and at-risk infant-mother dyads, 2) explore changes in co-regulation over time, and 3) explore the associations between infant-mother co-regulation and parenting stress in these low- and at-risk groups over time. Participants included three groups of infant-mother dyads (full-term [FT], n = 48; very low birthweight/preterm [VLBW/preterm] born 26-32 weeks, weighing 800-1500 g, n = 61; psycho-socially at-risk where parents had histories of socioeconomic disadvantage, n = 54) followed longitudinally at 6-, 12-, 18-, and 48-months of age. Dyads engaged in a free play in their homes that was coded for co-regulation using Fogel, de Koeyer, Secrist, Sipherd, Hafen, and Fricke's (2003) Revised Relational Coding System (RRCS), and mothers reported on their level of parenting stress. Results from MANOVAs at each time point indicated significant differences between the groups at 18-months, with psycho-socially at-risk dyads engaging in more one-sided interactions than FT and VLBW/preterm dyads, and more dysregulation and miscommunication than VLBW/preterm dyads. Multi-level models of co-regulation revealed that dyads became progressively less synchronous from 6- to 12-months, followed by greater synchrony and mutual reciprocity from 12-months onwards. Parenting stress was associated with less synchrony and less mutual reciprocity amongst the at-risk groups. Maternal education was associated with greater engagement and girls tended to engage in more synchronous interactions than boys. Our results underscore the value and implications of considering background risk and concurrent parent perceptions in the development and reciprocity of parent-infant co-regulation and their subsequent relationships from infancy onwards., (Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Mothers are the link between patients, physicians, and other caregivers. Therefore, they should be well informed about the child's heart defect and accompanying issues. This study aimed to assess the mothers' understanding of their child's heart defect at hospitalisation and one year later and to analyse the individual development and associated factors., Material and Methods: Mothers of children with CHD (aged ≤2 years) were interviewed at time of hospitalisation and after one year. Development was calculated using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Knowledge was assessed using the Hannover Inventory of Parental Knowledge of Congenital Heart Disease that consists of eight subscales. Associated factors were self-assessed knowledge at hospitalisation, educational level, cardiac diagnosis, self-assessed severity of CHD, and source of information at follow-up., Results: Mothers showed mixed understanding at hospitalisation, but their knowledge improved over a 1-year time span. This was especially true for the subscales "management of CHD" and "surveillance of deterioration", which resulted in an overall good knowledge at follow-up, whereas knowledge on infective endocarditis was still poor. Mothers with lowest and highest education had the most notable improvements. The same holds for caregivers with children with more severe CHD and who rated their knowledge as less than good., Conclusion: Overall, mothers showed significant improvement especially for topics that are important to provide adequate care, but still revealed knowledge gaps one year after hospitalisation. Consequently, clinicians should evaluate the individual knowledge level at all times and inform mothers accordingly.

Background: Infant obesogenic appetitive behaviors are associated with greater infant weight and child obesity, yet little is known about maternal influences on infant appetitive behaviors. This study examines the relations between maternal eating behaviors, feeding to soothe, and infant appetitive behaviors in a longitudinal sample of United States mothers., Methods: Pregnant women were recruited in the first trimester (< 12 weeks) and followed through 1 year postpartum. Mothers reported their own eating behaviors (eating competence, restrained, emotional, and external eating) in pregnancy; feeding to soothe their infant at 2, 6, and 12 months postpartum; and their infants' appetitive behaviors (enjoyment of food, food responsiveness, slowness in eating, and satiety responsiveness) at 6 months. Three path models were estimated to examine the direct relations of maternal eating behaviors with infant appetitive behaviors, the indirect relations of maternal eating behaviors with infant appetitive behaviors through feeding to soothe, and the longitudinal relations between feeding to soothe and infant appetitive behaviors., Results: Maternal eating behaviors and infant appetitive behaviors were directly and indirectly related in all three models. Greater maternal eating competence was related to greater enjoyment of food but was not related to feeding to soothe. Greater maternal restrained and external eating were not directly related to infant appetitive behaviors but were indirectly related to greater infant responsiveness to food through more frequent feeding to soothe. Additionally, several longitudinal relations between feeding to soothe behaviors and infant appetitive behaviors were present. More frequent feeding to soothe at 2 months was related to greater responsiveness to food at 6 months, which was then related to more frequent feeding to soothe at 6 months. Furthermore, greater satiety responsiveness, faster eating speed, and greater responsiveness to food at 6 months were related to more frequent feeding to soothe at 12 months., Conclusions: Maternal eating behaviors were related to infant appetitive behaviors directly and indirectly through feeding to soothe. Additionally, results suggest feeding to soothe and infant appetitive behaviors may be bidirectionally linked. These results underscore the need to examine how parental feeding behaviors are influenced both by parental eating behaviors and child appetitive behaviors throughout infancy., Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov. Registration ID - NCT02217462 . Date of registration - August 13, 2014., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

High baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) and infant temperament are associated with a child's ability to self-regulate, but moderators of this association have not been thoroughly examined in the literature. Parents who are more involved might have more opportunities to interact with and soothe their children. The current study examined whether parental involvement moderated the association between infant temperament and baseline RSA with mothers and fathers across early infancy. Participants included families (n = 91) assessed at 4 and 8 months of age. Infant temperamental surgency and parental involvement were measured via parent-report when infants were 4 months old, and infant baseline RSA was measured at 4 and 8 months of age. Results revealed differences in mother versus father predictors of infant baseline RSA. A significant Infant Surgency X Maternal Play interaction was revealed; infants of mothers who were low involvement increased in their baseline RSA as their surgency increased. A significant main effect of father care was found; infants with highly involved fathers had higher baseline RSA. In conclusion, mothers and fathers may differentially influence their infant's cardiac physiological regulation based on their specific type of involvement., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Sleep disruption and deprivation are highly prevalent among parents of an infant. However, most postpartum sleep studies focus solely on mothers, and few studies have investigated whether sleep differs between first-time and experienced parents. The present study aimed to determine whether self-reported sleep duration and quality differ between first-time and experienced mothers and fathers during the postpartum period. A total of 111 parents (54 couples and three single mothers) of 6-month-old infants completed a 2-week sleep diary to evaluate measures of sleep duration, sleep continuity, and sleep quality. An analysis of covariance model was used to compare the sleep variables of first-time to experienced parents. Breastfeeding frequency, infant sleep location, depression, education, and work status were used as co-variables. First-time mothers reported a longer consecutive nocturnal sleep duration (mean [SEM] 297.34 [17.15] versus 246.01 [14.79] min, p < .05), fewer nocturnal awakenings (mean [SEM] 1.57 [0.20] versus 2.12 [0.17], p < .05), and rated their sleep quality higher (mean [SEM] score 7.07 [0.36] versus 5.97 [0.30], p < .05) than experienced mothers, while total nocturnal sleep duration did not differ. There were no differences in subjective sleep measures between first-time and experienced fathers. The present study indicates that experienced mothers reported more fragmented sleep and perceived having worse sleep quality than first-time mothers, but that paternal sleep did not differ as a function of parental experience. These findings have clinical implications for healthcare professionals working with families of various configurations and sizes., (© 2020 European Sleep Research Society.)

Background: A mother's psychological well-being impacts her own and her infant's health. Challenges to maternal psychological well-being (eg, depression, anxiety) are associated with increased infant emergency department (ED) utilization. It is not known if other maternal psychological factors, such as relational health and past maltreatment during one's own childhood, are also associated with child ED utilization., Objective: Examine maternal psychological factors (ie, childhood maltreatment, mental health, and relational health) associated with infant ED utilization in the first year of life., Design/methods: Participants included 120 economically disadvantaged women recruited into a prospective longitudinal study during pregnancy and followed across the first year of their child's life. Mothers reported number of infant ED visits from birth to 1 year (assessed 12-months postpartum), as well as on their own childhood maltreatment, relational health, and mental health (assessed prenatally). Associations between maternal experiences and infant ED utilization were assessed via bivariate correlations and regression analyses., Results: Infants attended on average 0.79 ED visits (range 0-6). Maltreatment during the mother's own childhood, poor relational health, and prenatal mental health symptoms were each associated with greater infant ED visits; maternal age, income, and education were not. In a Poisson regression, childhood sexual abuse was the strongest predictor of infant ED utilization, followed by low acceptance from the mother's father figure and prenatal depression., Conclusions: Prenatal assessment of psychosocial factors may help identify risk for higher ED use. Women with psychosocial risk factors may need additional support establishing supportive primary and behavioral health care before and after birth., (Copyright © 2021 Academic Pediatric Association. All rights reserved.)

Research shows that a woman's brain and body undergo drastic changes to support her transition to parenthood during the perinatal period. The presence of this plasticity suggests that mothers' brains may be changed by their experiences. Exposure to severe stress may disrupt adaptive changes in the maternal brain and further impact the neural circuits of stress regulation and maternal motivation. Emerging literature of human mothers provides evidence that stressful experience, whether from the past or present environment, is associated with altered responses to infant cues in brain circuits that support maternal motivation, emotion regulation, and empathy. Interventions that reduce stress levels in mothers may reverse the negative impact of stress exposure on the maternal brain. Finally, outstanding questions regarding the timing, chronicity, types, and severity of stress exposure, as well as study design to identify the causal impact of stress, and the role of race/ethnicity are discussed., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Chronic stress has been increasingly linked with aberrations in children's behavioral, cognitive, and social development, yet the effect of chronic physiological stress on neural development during the first year of life is largely unknown. The present study aims to link a physiological index of chronic stress (maternal hair cortisol concentration) to maturational differences in infant functional brain development during the first year of life. Participants were 94 mother-infant dyads. To index chronic physiological stress, maternal hair samples were assayed for the previous three months' cortisol output. To examine the development of brain function during the first year of life, six-to-twelve-month-old infants (N = 94) completed a resting electroencephalography (EEG) recording. Infants of mothers with evidence of higher physiological stress showed increased relative low-frequency (theta) power and reduced relative high-frequency (alpha, high-gamma) power, compared to infants of mothers with evidence of low physiological stress. This pattern of findings is consistent with other studies suggesting that early life stress may lead to alterations in patterns of infant brain development. These findings are important given that maturational lags in brain development can be long-lasting and are associated with deficits in cognitive and emotional development. The present research also suggests that reducing maternal physiological stress may be a useful target for future interventions aiming to foster neurodevelopment during the first year of life., (© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Maternal postpartum depression is a prominent risk factor for aberrant child socioemotional development, but there is little understanding about the neural phenotypes that underlie infant sensitivity to maternal depression. We examined whether newborn white matter fractional anisotropy (FA), a measure of white matter maturity, moderates the association between maternal postpartum depressive symptoms and infant negative reactivity at 6 months. Participants were 80 mother-infant dyads participating in a prospective population-based cohort, and included families whose newborns underwent a magnetic resonance/diffusion tensor imaging scan at 2-5 weeks of age and whose mothers reported their own depressive symptoms at 3 and 6 months postpartum and infant negative emotional reactivity at 6 months. The whole-brain FA moderated the association between maternal depressive symptoms and mother-reported infant negative reactivity at 6 months after adjusting for the covariates. Maternal depressive symptoms were positively related to infant negative reactivity among infants with high or average FA in the whole brain and in corpus callosum and cingulum, but not among those with low FA. The link between maternal depressive symptoms and infant negative reactivity was moderated by newborn FA. The variation in white matter microstructure might play a role in child susceptibility to parental distress., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press.)

Objective: To prospectively assess breastfeeding and room-sharing practices during the infant's first 6 months and investigate whether mothers' own adult attachment style predicts the initiation and course of these recommended parenting behaviors., Method: This study included 193 mother-infant dyads living in the Netherlands. Diary methodology was used to generate 27 weekly measures of breastfeeding and room-sharing during the infant's first 6 months. Multilevel mixed effects models were used to examine trajectories of breastfeeding and room-sharing and to test whether mothers' own adult attachment style predicted the initiation and course of these behaviors, adjusting for covariates., Results: Most (86%) mothers initiated breastfeeding immediately after birth and the rates of breastfeeding declined steadily over the 6 months (b = -2.47, SE = 0.19, p < .001). Mothers with higher attachment avoidance showed faster decreases in breastfeeding than less avoidant mothers (b = -1.07, SE = 0.21, p < .001). Sixty-four percent of mothers engaged in room-sharing after birth which also decreased steadily over the 6 months (b = -3.51, SE = 0.21, p < .001). Mothers' attachment style did not predict the initiation or course of room-sharing., Conclusions: Given the major implications of breastfeeding and room-sharing for infants' health, safety, and development, the pediatrics community has issued clear guidelines encouraging these behaviors. Yet many new parents do not adhere to the recommended practices. This study identifies mothers' adult attachment style as a predictor of breastfeeding over time that could be incorporated into interventions for parents., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Parental attitudes and behavior can impact infant media use, though all existing research examines this after the baby is born. However, many studies suggest that prenatal attitudes and behavior can influence parenting practices around many different types of parenting decisions. This study examines whether this extends to parenting practices surrounding media use during infancy. Participants consisted of 170 mothers who completed a number of questionnaires at two time points (prenatally and when infant was ∼16 months old). Results revealed that parents had many concerns about media before their child was born. More supportive prenatal attitudes regarding using media as a coping strategy was associated with higher levels of infant media use and technoference (i.e., when media interfere with the parent-child relationship). Additionally, prenatal media use by mothers was associated with higher levels of infant media use, but lower levels of technoference. Finally, prenatal depression was associated with higher technoference, while parental efficacy was associated with higher infant video chat. Implications of the study include discussion regarding media use at medical office prenatal visits and creating a family media plan before the birth of the child.

Objective: Maternal depression is associated with infant and child sleep patterns, and with infant temperament. Here, we examine whether infant temperament mediated an association between maternal antenatal depression and toddler sleep., Method: Within the prebirth longitudinal cohort Growing Up in New Zealand, symptoms of antenatal and postnatal depression were measured in 5,568 women using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Infant temperament was measured at age 9 months using the Very Short Form of Infant Behavior Questionnaire-Revised (IBQ-R VSF). Sleep duration and nighttime awakenings were reported by parents when children were 2 years old., Results: Independent associations of maternal depression with child sleep patterns at age 2 years, adjusted for maternal demographics, physical health, family relationships, and child health and feeding, were determined using multivariate logistic regression analysis. The odds of having ≥2 nighttime awakenings were increased for children whose mothers had antenatal (1.36, 1.07-1.73) but not postnatal (1.22, 0.88-1.68) or both antenatal and postnatal depression (0.89, 0.56-1.36). There was no association of maternal depression with shorter sleep duration. Two of five dimensions of infant temperament (fear and negative affect) were associated with both antenatal depression scores and increased nighttime awakenings. Mediation analyses controlling for postnatal depression and other predictors of child sleep supported an indirect pathway of antenatal depression to child sleep through infant temperamental negative affectivity., Conclusion: Antenatal depression is independently associated with more frequent nighttime awakenings in early childhood. Findings support an indirect pathway through infant negative affect characteristics., (© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Pediatric Psychology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Parenting directly affects the developmental and clinical outcomes of children. How parental personality relates to perceptual and cognitive mechanisms during early development is not clear. For parents with traits of the personality dimension schizotypy, would their infant display brain responses similar to those on the schizophrenia-spectrum? This study investigates whether maternal personality influences early social-cognitive awareness during the first 6 postnatal months. Schizotypy is a dimension of personality within the general population. If deficits contribute to the development of schizophrenia-spectrum disorders by influencing the development of symptom-like characteristics, they may be observable in neurotypical individuals with schizotypal characteristics. Parents and their infants were shown standardised positive and negative faces and event-related potential responses were assessed. It was hypothesised that the infants of schizotypic mothers would display differential Negative-central event-related potentials for the happy and fearful expressions when compared to infants of non-schizotypic mothers. Results support prior literature; indicating 6-month-old infants allocate more attentional resources to fearful when contrasted to happy faces. The adult cohort displays this same ability. In addition, schizotypic mothers displayed comparable amplitudes for both expressions in comparison to the control mothers who exhibited larger amplitudes towards the fearful compared to the happy expression. Infants of schizotypic mothers did not show a greater sensitivity to facial expressions at 6-months, but schizotypic mothers showed a generalised response towards facial expressions compared to the typical P600 response illustrated by the control mothers. The present study suggests that development in the higher cognitive domains, such as the allocation of attention to novel stimuli, are not affected at 6 months of age by maternal personality related to schizotypy when examined at the group level. Implications for personality development, maternal-infant interactions and cognitive neuroscience methodologies are discussed., (Copyright © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Consistency in the order of individuals in a group across short periods of time-reliability-is both important developmentally and meaningful psychologically. For example, documenting the reliabilities of infant behaviors and maternal parenting practices elucidates the nature and structure of early development. In this prospective short-term longitudinal study (Ns = 51 5-month infants and their mothers), we examined reliabilities of individual variation in multiple infant behaviors (physical development, social interaction, exploration, nondistress vocalization, and distress communication) and maternal parenting practices (nurturing, encouragement of motor growth, social exchange, didactic interaction, provision of the material environment, and speech to infant). Medium to large effect size reliabilities characterize infant behaviors and maternal parenting practices, but both betray substantial amounts of unshared variance. Established reliability is essential to the application of these measures in infancy studies, it is central to replication, and it is a limiting factor in predictive validity., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: This study examined longitudinal relations between maternal bonding and infant temperament in the first nine months after birth., Design: Our sample consisted of 281 women, enrolled at five maternity hospitals, who completed questionnaires during the first week (T1), at six weeks (T2) and nine months postpartum (T3). Maternal bonding was assessed using the Mother-to-Infant Bonding Scale at T1 and T2 and the Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire at T3. Infant temperament was measured using the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire, completed by the mothers at T2 and T3., Results: The results of a path model showed a long-term effect flowing from the child to the mother, with infant temperament at T2 predicting maternal bonding at T3 over and above stability in bonding. At T3, bonding was linked more strongly to child temperament at T2 than to child temperament assessed concurrently at T3. Maternal bonding did predict infant temperament, but this was true only of bonding reported at T1 and infant temperament at T2, that is, not of bonding assessed at T2 and infant temperament at T3., Conclusion: Our results indicate that maternal bonding in the first week postpartum may temporarily affect child temperament, but infant's temperament several weeks after birth - rather than several months postpartum - plays a pervasive role in shaping the long-lasting nature of the mother-child relationship. Our findings thus seem to support the suggestion that the early postpartum weeks represent an important period in the development of maternal bonding., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest ‘None'., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Maternal biological systems impact infant temperament as early as the prenatal period, though the mechanisms of this association are unknown. Using a prospective, longitudinal design, we found that maternal ( N = 89) amplitudes of the late positive potential (LPP) in response to negative stimuli during the second, but not the third, trimester of pregnancy predicted observed and physiological indices of temperamental reactivity in infants at age 4 months. Maternal LPP was positively associated with observed infant fear and negatively associated with frontal EEG asymmetry and cortisol reactivity in infants at age 4 months. Results identify a putative mechanism, early in pregnancy, for the intergenerational transmission of emotional reactivity from mother to infant.

This study examined the main and interactive effects of maternal perceived stress and infant temperament-surgency, negative affectivity, and orienting/regulation-on infant salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) responses to stress. Saliva samples were collected prior to and following two naturalistic stressors: maternal separation conducted at 9 months and blood draw/immunizations conducted at 12 months. sAA area under the curve (AUC) was computed to determine response of the sympathetic nervous system to each stressor. Results revealed significant interactions of maternal stress and infant negative affectivity and orienting/regulation with sAA AUC. Relations between maternal stress and infant sAA AUC were stronger among infants with higher levels of negative affectivity and lower levels of orienting/regulation. These results highlight the need to examine both infant characteristics and environmental factors when investigating the development of stress response systems., (© 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends infants' exposure to electronic screen-based media be minimized; however, more research is needed to understand effects of viewing screen-based media. Here, we examine relations between media use and sleep. Data were collected from mothers when their infants (N = 429) were four months of age. Mothers answered questions about the time their infants spent watching electronic screen-based media. Exposure to electronic screen-based media was negatively associated with nighttime sleep (but not daytime sleep), such that an hour of screen time was associated with nearly 13 min less sleep on a typical night., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: Adolescent motherhood remains common in developing countries and is associated with risk factors that adversely impact infant neurodevelopment, including poverty, low maternal education, and increased maternal psychopathology. Yet, no published work has assessed how these factors affect early brain development in developing countries., Methods: This pilot study examined effects of maternal psychopathology and education on early neurocognitive development in a sample of adolescent mothers (N = 50, final n = 31) and their infants living in poverty in São Paulo, Brazil. Maternal symptoms of anxiety, depression, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and education level were assessed during pregnancy. Infant neurocognitive development was assessed at 6 months of age, with oscillatory power and functional connectivity in the theta (4-6 Hz), alpha (6-9 Hz), and gamma (30-50 Hz) frequencies derived from resting-state electroencephalography; temperament (negative affect, attention, and regulation); and cognitive, language, and motor skills. Cluster-based permutation testing and graph-theoretical methods were used to identify alterations in oscillatory power and connectivity that were associated with maternal psychopathology and education. Correlations between power and connectivity alterations were examined in relation to infants' overt cognitive behavioral abilities., Results: Increased maternal anxiety and lower maternal education were associated with weaker oscillatory connectivity in alpha-range networks. Infants with the weakest connectivity in the alpha network associated with maternal anxiety also showed the lowest cognitive ability. Greater maternal anxiety and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder were associated with increased absolute and relative theta power., Conclusions: Our findings highlight the importance of addressing maternal psychopathology and improving education in poor adolescent mothers to prevent negative effects on infant neurodevelopment., (Copyright © 2019 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

This study investigates parental perceptions of cries of 1-month-old infants later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and non-ASD controls. Parents of children with and without ASD listened to cry recordings of infants later diagnosed with ASD and comparison infants and rated them on cry perception scales. Parents completed the Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire (BAPQ) to assess the potential relations between traits associated with autism and cry perception. Across parents, ASD infant cries were rated as more distressed, less typical, and reflecting greater pain, with no significant differences between parent groups. Parents of children with ASD scored higher on the BAPQ compared to parents of children without ASD. Follow up analyses explored the relations between BAPQ score and cry ratings.

Introduction: This exploratory study investigated the infant time spent in tummy time (TT) in relation to body mass index z score (BMI-z), weight gain, and motor development in infants from birth to 4 months., Method: Mothers and their infants were telephone surveyed at 2 and 4 months. Mother demographics; TT; feeding practices; and infant length, and height, and development were collected each time., Results: Results from Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel and single logistic regression showed a significant association between development, level of BMI-z, and time spent in TT at 2 months of age (p < .0001). The threshold model showed there was a decline in BMI-z at 4 months as daily time in TT increases past the threshold value of approximately 12 minutes per day. Mother education and TT at 2 months were significant predictors of BMI-z at 4 months., Discussion: Study outcomes suggest that infant positioning and time in TT promote infant motor development and may moderate rapid infant weight gain., (Copyright © 2018 National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Maternal sensitivity plays a central role in shaping children's development across a number of domains, and may be disrupted by depression. The current meta-analysis quantified the magnitude of the association between depression and maternal sensitivity, defined broadly as timely, contingent, and appropriate responding to infants' cues, from birth to 12 months. Across k = 48 studies and n = 4,934 mother-infant dyads, the aggregate effect size between depression and maternal sensitivity was r = -.16, p < .0001, indicating that mothers with higher depression levels were less sensitive than mothers with lower depression levels. Studies that compared a depressed group with a nondepressed/control group had larger effect sizes (r = -.35, p < .0001) than studies that examined depression within a single sample of either unselected cases or clinical-only cases (r = -.11, p < .001), suggesting that clinical levels of depression may pose a particular threat to sensitive parenting. Clinical implications (e.g. screening, prevention) are discussed.

In the weaning period, infants are introduced to solid food after being fed solely on milk, which involves a deliberate reorganization of the infant-caregiver feeding interaction. This multiple case study, involving 5 dyads with 10 repeated observations, analyzed its dynamical structure using Cross-Recurrence Quantification Analysis. The results showed that an optimal interaction occurs when the caregiver is leading by roughly 1-2 seconds. During the weaning period, all dyads showed signs of increased synchronization, although there are interesting differences between dyads. These findings indicate that infant-caregiver dyads co-regulate their behavior within a relatively short period., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Background: What, when, how, how much, and how often infants are fed have been associated with childhood obesity risk. The objective of this secondary analysis was to examine the effect of a responsive parenting (RP) intervention designed for obesity prevention on parents' infant feeding practices in the first year after birth., Methods: Primiparous mother-newborn dyads were randomized to the Intervention Nurses Start Infants Growing on Healthy Trajectories (INSIGHT) Study RP intervention or child safety control. Research nurses delivered intervention content at home at infant age 3-4, 16, 28, and 40 weeks, and at a research center at 1 year. RP feeding guidance advised feeding that was contingent (i.e., feed in response to hunger and satiety signs, alternatives to using food to soothe), and developmentally appropriate (i.e., delaying introduction of solids, age-appropriate portion sizes). Infant feeding practices (i.e., bottle use, introduction of solids, food to soothe) were assessed by phone interviews and online surveys and dietary intake was assessed using a food frequency questionnaire., Results: RP mothers were more likely to use of structure-based feeding practices including limit-setting (p < 0.05) and consistent feeding routines (p < 0.01) at age 1 year. RP group mothers were less likely to use non-responsive feeding practices such as pressuring their infant to finish the bottle/food (p < 0.001), and using food to soothe (p < 0.01), propping the bottle (p < 0.05) assessed between 4 and 8 months, and putting baby to bed with a bottle at age 1 year (p < 0.05). Few differences were seen between groups in what specific foods or food groups infants were fed., Conclusions: Anticipatory guidance on RP in feeding can prevent the use of food to soothe and promote use of more sensitive, structure-based feeding which could reduce obesity risk by affecting how and when infants are fed during the first year., Trial Registration: The Intervention Nurses Start Infants Growing on Healthy Trajectories (INSIGHT) Study. www.clinicaltrials.gov . NCT01167270. Registered 21 July 2010.

Early life stress has been shown to contribute to alterations in biobehavioral regulation. Whereas many different forms of childhood adversities have been studied in relation to cardiovascular outcomes, very little is known about potential associations between caregivers' verbally aggressive behavior and heart rate and blood pressure in the child. This prospective study examined whether maternal verbally aggressive behavior in early infancy is associated with heart rate or blood pressure at age 5-6. In the Amsterdam Born Children and their Development study, a large prospective, population-based birth cohort, maternal verbally aggressive behavior was assessed by questionnaire in the 13th week after birth. The child's blood pressure and heart rate were measured during rest at age 5-6 (n=2553 included). Maternal verbally aggressive behavior in infancy was associated with a higher systolic blood pressure (SBP) both in supine and sitting position after adjustment for sex, height and age (SBP supine B=1.01 mmHg; 95% CI [0.06; 1.95] and SPB sitting B=1.29 mmHg; 95% CI [0.12; 2.46]). Adjustment for potential confounding variables, such as other mother-infant dyad aspects, family hypertension and child's BMI, only slightly attenuated the associations (SBP supine B=0.99 mmHg; 95% CI [0.06; 1.93] and SPB sitting B=1.11 mmHg; 95% CI [-0.06; 2.27]). Maternal verbally aggressive behavior was not associated with diastolic blood pressure or heart rate at age 5-6. Maternal verbally aggressive behavior might be an important early life stressor with negative impact on blood pressure later in life, which should be further investigated. Possible underlying mechanisms are discussed.

We address three long-standing fundamental questions about early human development and parental caregiving within a specificity framework using data from 796 infant-mother dyads from 11 societies worldwide. Adopting a cross-society view opens a vista on universal biological origins of, and contextual influences on, infant behaviours and parenting practices. We asked: how do infant behaviours and parenting practices vary across societies? How do infant behaviours relate to other infant behaviours, and how do parent practices relate to other parent practices? Are infant behaviours and parent practices related to one another? Behaviours of firstborn five-month infants and parenting practices of their mothers were microanalysed from videorecords of extensive naturally occurring interactions in the home. In accord with behavioural specificity, biological expectations and cultural influences, we find that infants and mothers from diverse societies exhibit mean-level society differences in their behaviours and practices; domains of infant behaviours generally do not cohere, nor do domains of maternal practices; and only specific infant behaviours and mother practices correspond. Few relations were moderated by society., (© 2017 The Author(s).)

The increasing prevalence of allergy in affluent countries may be caused by reduced intensity and diversity of microbial stimulation, resulting in abnormal postnatal immune maturation. Most studies investigating the underlying immunomodulatory mechanisms have focused on postnatal microbial exposure, for example demonstrating that the gut microbiota differs in composition and diversity during the first months of life in children who later do or do not develop allergic disease. However, it is also becoming increasingly evident that the maternal microbial environment during pregnancy is important in childhood immune programming, and the first microbial encounters may occur already in utero. During pregnancy, there is a close immunological interaction between the mother and her offspring, which provides important opportunities for the maternal microbial environment to influence the immune development of the child. In support of this theory, combined pre- and postnatal supplementations seem to be crucial for the preventive effect of probiotics on infant eczema. Here, the influence of microbial and immune interactions within the mother-offspring dyad on childhood allergy development will be discussed. In addition, how perinatal transmission of microbes and immunomodulatory factors from mother to offspring may shape appropriate immune maturation during infancy and beyond, potentially via epigenetic mechanisms, will be examined. Deeper understanding of these interactions between the maternal and offspring microbiome and immunity is needed to identify efficacious preventive measures to combat the allergy epidemic., (© 2017 The Association for the Publication of the Journal of Internal Medicine.)

The voice is the most direct link we have to others' minds, allowing us to communicate using a rich variety of speech cues [1, 2]. This link is particularly critical early in life as parents draw infants into the structure of their environment using infant-directed speech (IDS), a communicative code with unique pitch and rhythmic characteristics relative to adult-directed speech (ADS) [3, 4]. To begin breaking into language, infants must discern subtle statistical differences about people and voices in order to direct their attention toward the most relevant signals. Here, we uncover a new defining feature of IDS: mothers significantly alter statistical properties of vocal timbre when speaking to their infants. Timbre, the tone color or unique quality of a sound, is a spectral fingerprint that helps us instantly identify and classify sound sources, such as individual people and musical instruments [5-7]. We recorded 24 mothers' naturalistic speech while they interacted with their infants and with adult experimenters in their native language. Half of the participants were English speakers, and half were not. Using a support vector machine classifier, we found that mothers consistently shifted their timbre between ADS and IDS. Importantly, this shift was similar across languages, suggesting that such alterations of timbre may be universal. These findings have theoretical implications for understanding how infants tune in to their local communicative environments. Moreover, our classification algorithm for identifying infant-directed timbre has direct translational implications for speech recognition technology., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Objective: Our goal is to test the efficacy of a family-based, multi-component intervention focused on infants of African-American (AA) mothers and families, a minority population at elevated risk for pediatric obesity, versus a child safety attention-control group to promote healthy weight gain patterns during the first two years of life., Design, Participants, and Methods: The design is a two-group randomized controlled trial among 468 AA pregnant women in central North Carolina. Mothers and study partners in the intervention group receive anticipatory guidance on breastfeeding, responsive feeding, use of non-food soothing techniques for infant crying, appropriate timing and quality of complementary feeding, age-appropriate infant sleep, and minimization of TV/media. The primary delivery channel is 6 home visits by a peer educator, 4 interim newsletters and twice-weekly text messaging. Intervention families also receive 2 home visits from an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Assessments occur at 28 and 37weeks gestation and when infants are 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15months of age., Results: The primary outcome is infant/toddler growth and likelihood of overweight at 15months. Differences between groups are expected to be achieved through uptake of the targeted infant feeding and care behaviors (secondary outcomes) and change in caregivers' modifiable risk factors (mediators) underpinning the intervention., Conclusions: If successful in promoting healthy infant growth and enhancing caregiver behaviors, "Mothers and Others" will have high public health relevance for future obesity-prevention efforts aimed at children younger than 2years, including interventional research and federal, state, and community health programs., Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT01938118, August 9, 2013., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

The role of mother-infant interaction quality is studied in the relation between prenatal maternal emotional symptoms and child behavioral problems. Healthy pregnant, Dutch women (N = 96, M = 31.6, SD = 3.3) were allocated to the "exposed group" (n = 46), consisting of mothers with high levels of prenatal feelings of anxiety and depression, or the "low-exposed group" (n = 50), consisting of mothers with normal levels of depressive or anxious symptoms during pregnancy. When the children (49 girls, 47 boys) were 23 to 60 months of age (M = 39.0, SD = 9.6), parents completed the Child Behavior Checklist (T.M. Achenbach & L.A. Rescorla, ), and mother-child interaction quality during a home visit was rated using the Emotional Availability Scales. There were no differences in mother-child interaction quality between the prenatally exposed and low-exposed groups. Girls exposed to high prenatal emotional symptoms showed more internalizing problems, if maternal interaction quality was less optimal. No significant effects were found for boys., (© 2017 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Stress physiology is shaped by early experience, with enduring effects on health. The relation of chronic maternal physiological stress, as indexed by hair cortisol, to infants' stress systems and to mother-infant interaction quality has not been established. We examined maternal hair and salivary cortisol, six-month-old infants' salivary cortisol, and mother-infant interaction in 121 mother-infant dyads. High maternal hair cortisol was related to higher infant average salivary cortisol concentration. Maternal hair cortisol and bedtime salivary cortisol were both uniquely related to infant bedtime salivary cortisol. Mothers with higher hair cortisol were more intrusive and had lower positive engagement synchrony with their infants. Maternal intrusiveness moderated the association of maternal hair cortisol and infant salivary cortisol, such that maternal hair and infant average salivary cortisol were related only when mothers were more intrusive. Maternal chronic physiological stress may upregulate infants' developing stress systems, particularly in the context of lower mother-infant interaction quality., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Infant-parent interactions occur across many situations, yet most home-based assessments of parenting behaviors are conducted under conditions of low stress, such as free play. In this study, low-income mothers from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project were observed at home interacting with their 14-month-olds in the mildly stressful "High Chair" assessment (n=1718 dyads). This methodological study tested whether High Chair maternal responsiveness and detachment predicted later toddler cognitive and emotion outcomes, over and above equivalent maternal predictors during free play. High Chair responsiveness and detachment were significant, although modest, predictors of child cognitive and emotion outcomes, over and above maternal responsiveness and detachment during free play; except High Chair responsiveness did not predict the emotion outcome. There were no significant differences between ethnic groups in prediction of outcomes. Results are discussed in terms of the methodological value of assessing parenting behaviors across diverse situations and populations., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Maternal depression can significantly impact mothers' sensitivity to their infants' needs as well as infants' social and emotional development. The still-face paradigm (SFP) is widely used to assess infants' understanding of the contingency between their own behavior and that of their caregivers, as well as infants' ability to self-regulate arousal levels during sudden changes in maternal responsiveness. Infants of clinically depressed mothers display blunted levels of negative affect compared to infants of non-depressed mothers during the still-face (SF) phase. However, little is known about whether individual differences in elevated, non-clinical levels of maternal depression similarly affect mother-infant interactions. The current study examines the longitudinal effects of non-clinical maternal depression on infant and maternal behaviors during the SFP. Infants (N=63) were assessed at 5 and 9 months and maternal depression was assessed at 5 months using the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Infants of mothers with elevated levels of depression displayed less negative engagement during the SF phase compared to infants of mothers with lower levels of depression. This effect was present at 5 months, but not at 9 months. Findings demonstrate that non-clinical levels of maternal depressive symptomatology can have a significant impact on infants' affective regulation during the first half of the first year of life, but this does not necessarily have a long-lasting influence later in infancy. Interventions may want to target mothers with non-clinical depression to promote healthy infant social and emotional development., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Maternal reflective functioning (RF) has been associated with quality of parent-child interactions and child development. This study investigated whether prenatal RF predicted the development of infant physical aggression and whether maternal sensitivity and/or intrusiveness mediated or moderated this association. The sample consisted of 96 first-time mothers (M = 22.57 years, SD = 2.13) and their infants (54 % male). Prenatal RF was measured with an interview, maternal behavior was observed during free play at 6 months post-partum, and infant physical aggression was assessed at 6, 12, and 20 months using maternal reports. Multivariate analyses of variance showed that relatively poor prenatal RF was related to relatively high infant physical aggression. These associations were moderated by maternal intrusiveness, with significant differences in physical aggression between RF-groups reportedly only in the absence of intrusiveness. Generally, mothers reported an increase in physical aggression between 6 and 12 months, except when they had both low RF-skills and were relatively less sensitive. It is concluded that prenatal RF is associated with (development of) infant physical aggression, and may be targeted in intervention programs aimed at reducing early physical aggression. Less adequate parenting, however, may counteract the beneficial effects of good RF, or obscure insight into children's behavioral development., Competing Interests: Compliance with Ethical Standards Funding This study is part of MINDS-Leiden (Principal Investigators: H. Swaab and S. H. M. van Goozen). This study was funded by Grant 056-23-001 from the National Initiative for Brain and Cognition Research (NIHC) supported and coordinated by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. Ethical Approval All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed Consent Informed consent was obtained from all participating women included in the study.

Early chronic stress has enduring implications for physical and mental health outcomes. Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) has emerged as a marker of cumulative cortisol exposure, yet HCC in infants is not well understood. We examined how infant HCC relates to widely used basal salivary cortisol measures, maternal HCC, and environmental context in 111 infants assessed at 6 and 12 months of age. Maternal HCC at 6 and 12 months was correlated with infant HCC at 12 months. At 12 months, infant HCC was positively associated with waking salivary cortisol concentration (SCC), evening SCC, and area under the curve (AUC), but was independent of diurnal slope. Breastfeeding was associated with lower HCC, whereas increased sleep disruption was related to flatter slope. Reduced nighttime sleep duration was related both to higher HCC and to flatter slope. A person-focused analysis indicated that the combination of high HCC and flattened slope was associated with more environmental risks, highlighting the importance of investigating the interplay between HCC and diurnal cortisol slope. Results support the validity of HCC as a marker of cumulative cortisol exposure in infancy, while emphasizing the value of including multiple cortisol measures assessing distinct aspects of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) function., (© 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.)

Postnatal depression (PND) is associated with adverse effects on a broad range of child outcomes, including language problems. The current study aimed to investigate if the time of exposure to maternal PND symptoms measured with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) at 6 weeks, 4 months and 6 months postpartum were related to the infants' communication skills measured with the Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQ) at 12 and 24 months. Secondly, to study to what extent the number of exposures to high level of PND symptoms (i.e., EPDS score≥10) might be associated with level of communication skills later (at 12 and 24 months), and last, to determine to what extent maternal PND symptoms at 6 weeks were related to changes in the developmental course of communication skills from 4 to 24 months. 1555 children and their mothers participate in the study. Regression analyses indicated that PND at 4 months were associated with lower levels of communicative skills at 12 (coefficient -0.37, 95% CI -0.63 to -0.12, p=0.004) and 24 months (coefficient -0.34, CI -0.56 to -0.13, p=0.002). Infants of mothers with an EPDS sum score≥10 obtained at a minimum of two time points, had significantly worse communicative skills at 12 months than infants of mothers with no indication of PND (difference -6.12, CI -11.14 to -1.09, p=0.017). No such significant relations were found at 24 months. However, linear mixed effects analysis showed that mothers' depressive symptoms at 6 weeks were not significantly related to changes in infant communication scores from age 4 to 24 months. These findings suggest that symptoms of maternal PND symptoms should be taken into account for communication development in infancy., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Postnatal mother-infant bonding refers to the early emotional bond between mothers and infants. Although some factors, such as maternal mental health, especially postnatal depression, have been considered in relation to mother-infant bonding, few studies have investigated the role of infant temperament traits in early bonding. In this study, the effects of maternal postnatal depressive and anxiety symptoms and infant temperament traits on mother-infant bonding were examined using both mother and father reports of infant temperament. Data for this study came from the first phase of the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study (n=102, father reports n=62). After controlling for maternal symptoms of depression and anxiety, mother-reported infant positive emotionality, measured by infant smiling was related to better mother-infant bonding. In contrast, infant negative emotionality, measured by infant distress to limitations was related to lower quality of bonding. In regards to father-report infant temperament, only infant distress to limitations (i.e., frustration/anger) was associated with lower quality of mother-infant bonding. These findings underline the importance of infant temperament as one factor contributing to early parent-infant relationships, and counseling parents in understanding and caring for infants with different temperament traits., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Anti-fat prejudice (weight bias, obesity stigma) is strong, prevalent, and increasing in adults and is associated with negative outcomes for those with obesity. However, it is unknown how early in life this prejudice forms and the reasons for its development. We examined whether infants and toddlers might display an anti-fat bias and, if so, whether it was influenced by maternal anti-fat attitudes through a process of social learning. Mother-child dyads (N=70) split into four age groups participated in a preferential looking paradigm whereby children were presented with 10 pairs of average and obese human figures in random order, and their viewing times (preferential looking) for the figures were measured. Mothers' anti-fat prejudice and education were measured along with mothers' and fathers' body mass index (BMI) and children's television viewing time. We found that older infants (M=11months) had a bias for looking at the obese figures, whereas older toddlers (M=32months) instead preferred looking at the average-sized figures. Furthermore, older toddlers' preferential looking was correlated significantly with maternal anti-fat attitudes. Parental BMI, education, and children's television viewing time were unrelated to preferential looking. Looking times might signal a precursor to explicit fat prejudice socialized via maternal anti-fat attitudes., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Parents' representations of their infants consist of parents' subjective experiences of how they perceive their infants. They provide important information about the quality of the parent-infant relationship and are closely related to parenting behavior and infant attachment. Previous studies have shown that parents' representations emerge during pregnancy. However, little is known about prenatal (risk) factors that are related to parents' representations. In a prospective study, 308 mothers and 243 fathers were followed during pregnancy and postpartum. Prenatal risk factors were assessed with an adapted version of the Dunedin Family Services Indicator (T.G. Egan et al., ; R.C. Muir et al., ). At 26 weeks' gestation and 6 months' postpartum, parents' representations of their children were assessed with the Working Model of the Child Interview (C.H. Zeanah, D. Benoit, L. Hirshberg, M.L. Barton, & C. Regan). Results showed stability between pre- and postnatal representations, with fathers having more disengaged representations than did mothers. In addition, prenatal risk factors of parenting problems were associated with the quality of parents' prenatal (only in mothers) and postnatal representations. This study provides valuable information concerning parents at risk of developing nonbalanced representations of their children. In clinical practice, these families could be monitored more intensively and may be supported in developing a more optimal parent-infant relationship., (© 2015 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Background: Links between mothers' postnatal depression (PND) and children's cognition have been identified in several samples, but the evidence is inconsistent. We hypothesized that PND may specifically interfere with infants' imitation, an early learning ability that features in early mother-infant interaction and is linked to memory, causal understanding and joint attention., Methods: A randomly controlled experiment on imitation was embedded into a longitudinal study of a representative sample of firstborn British infants, whose mothers were assessed for depression using the SCAN interview during pregnancy and at 6 months postpartum. At a mean of 12.8 months, 253 infants were presented with two imitation tasks that varied in difficulty, in counterbalanced order., Results: The infants of mothers who experienced PND were significantly less likely than other infants in the sample to imitate the modelled actions, showing a 72% reduction in the likelihood of imitation. The association with PND was not explained by sociodemographic adversity, or a history of depression during pregnancy or prior to conception. Mothers' references to infants' internal states during mother-infant interaction at 6 months facilitated imitation at 12 months, but did not explain the link with PND., Conclusions: The findings support the hypothesis that associations between PND and later cognitive outcomes may partly derive from effects of the mother's illness on infants' early learning abilities. Support for infants' learning should be considered as an age-appropriate, child-focused component of interventions designed to ameliorate the effects of PND., (© 2015 The Authors. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health.)

Effects of temperament and maternal stress on infant sleep behaviors were explored longitudinally. Negative temperament was associated with sleep problems, and with longer sleep latency and night wakefulness, whereas maternal stress was associated with day sleep duration, suggesting infant and maternal characteristics affect sleep differentially., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Taking an ecological systems perspective, early parent-child relationships can be affected by interactions between systems where some are more proximally linked to the child than others. Socioeconomic status, a distal factor, is associated with social functioning during childhood, but research on its association with functioning during infancy, particularly attachment, is scant and inconsistent. Moreover, it is not clear how distal factors affect infant functioning. Other systems such as marital adjustment and parenting may moderate or mediate relations between distal factors and infant attachment. The current longitudinal study (n=135) examined the role of various systems - parental resources, marital functioning, parental sensitivity and involvement - in early infancy (3-, 5-, 7-months) on infant-mother (12-months) and infant-father (14-months) attachment security. Findings supported moderating processes but in different ways for infant-mother versus infant-father dyads. Implications for future studies and interventions are discussed., (Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the types of soothing behaviors used by mothers and fathers of infants, differences in use trajectories over time, and associated parenting outcomes., Methods: A longitudinal study of 241 families expecting their second child was performed. Data were collected at 1, 4, and 8 postnatal months and included measures of parental soothing techniques, involvement in soothing, distress in response to infant crying, and parenting self-efficacy., Results: The average number of soothing techniques used was 7.7 for mothers and 5.9 for fathers. Soothing frequency decreased over time, and change patterns of soothing differed over time by gender. In couples who shared responsibility for soothing, fathers felt more efficacious in parenting and mothers were less upset by infant crying., Discussion: Clinicians are encouraged to support fathers' engagement in infant soothing, facilitate the development of fathers' parenting confidence, and promote fathers' involvement in children's health and health care., (Copyright © 2015 National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)